RECENT PUBLICATIONS

GEOGRAPHIC INFLUENCES IN OLD TESTAMENT MASTERPIECES. By Laura H. Wild. Ginn and Co. 1915. 182 pages. $1.00.

Miss Wild is a professor of Biblical History and Literature in Lake Erie College. She says regarding the purpose of her book: "It is to give illustrations of how Old Testament literature is interpreted through the geography, history, botany, and zoology of the land in which it was written." In the attainment of this purpose the author is more than ordinarily successful. She is moderate in her claims regarding the effect of geographical influences upon the Hebrew people and their institutions. Illustrations are drawn mainly from the Old Testament poems whose figures of speech so well reflect the influence of environment upon the methods of thought and expression. Miss Wild collects and groups under appropriate heads the many examples of the influence which the desert, the pastoral life, the precarious agriculture, the cultivation of the vine, and the contrasts of plain and mountain exerted upon the life of the people. The book is a worthy effort and well done. It adds one more to the growing collection of interpretative geographical studies and it is sure to lead to others.

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY. By John McFarlane. viii. 560 pp. The Macmillan Company, 1914. $2.25.

The author is a lecturer in Geography in the University of Manchester, England, and the book is English in its general style of makeup. There are no half-tone plates, no colored maps, no diagrams and only a few sketch maps. No black-face type sets off the topics of paragraphs and there are very few tables of statistics. Yet the book has a number of strong features. The distribution of space among the countries treated is well balanced and would not be at all badly suited to American requirements; for example, the United Kingdom is given 38 pages, Germany 26, Japan 11, Canada 24, Mexico 5, and the United States 36.

Only three chapters are given to preliminary discussions (1) Physical Conditions of Economic Activity, (2) Climate, (3) Vegetation, and each of the remaining 44 chapters is devoted to a country or to a region (e. g. Central America, West Africa). The book gives more than usual consideration to geographical influences; countries are subdivided and their different physiographic or climatic provinces are treated as natural units: for example, France is subdivided into the following provinces: (1) the central massif, (2) the Armorican massif, (3) Aquitaine, (4) the Mediterranean region and the Rhone Valley, (5) the Alpine zone, (6) the Eastern border, (7) the Basin of Paris. In addition, certain topics-communications, waterways, commerce-which belong to the country as a whole are treated. This method of treatment is in our judgment the correct one for an Economic Geography. Though countries are not usually natural geographic units, yet they are the proper units for treatment in economic geography.

The book is well written and gives the impression of thorough reliability. Its content is admirable. Its shortcomings (to an American) are those mentioned in the beginning.

THE PANAMA CANAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMPETITION. By Lincoln Hutchinson, University of California. X+283 pages. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1915.

A careful study and a clear presentation of a topic which has much interest at the present time. The author has studied the trade routes of the last ten or fifteen years to show what the trend of development has been. Then the new factor, the canal, has been introduced and an attempt made to show how it may alter the direction or character of trade movement. The author has made a comprehensive study of statistics of all countries which publish such data and has added valuable personal observations based on a series of visits to all important regions concerned.

The discussion is largely of an economic nature but there is much of value for the geographer in this volume. F. E. W.

IN

THE CHILD'S INTEREST IN GEOGRAPHY

N American Education for February, 1915, Dr. George J. Dann, Superintendent of Schools, Oneonta, N. Y., discusses the above topic. He asks: "Are not the interests of the children themselves the key to the solution of this problem of procedure in teaching geography?"

Dr. Dann proceeded to investigate this question in the grades of the Oneonta schools. With the cooperation of his teachers he made a series of tests of various sorts under conditions which were likely to reveal the actual geographical interests of pupils of different ages.

"A preliminary effort was made to have the children in every grade investigated, instructed in each of the following departments of the subject: (a) The human phase.

(b) Maps and map drawing

(c) The industrial phase

(d) The physical phase

(e) The wonderful and curious

(f) Beautiful scenery

(g) The mathematical phase

(h) Animal life

(i) Plant life

(i) The commercial phase.

(k) Historic places."

** "For several days before each test was made the instructors were cautioned to put aside all personal preferences and to strive to put the children in possession of sufficient geographical data relating to each of these es to make them capable of intelligent choice." "The most marked

interest of fourth grade boys was in the human phase-in peoples, particularly those whose customs, dress and manners are far different from our own."

In the fifth and sixth grades he found that the interest of boys in the human phase was even more notable than in the preceding year and he summarizes by saying: "Our results were of such a nature as fairly to establish the fact that the interests in people, their habits, customs, and dress is strong and persistent in all of the grades of the elementary school."

"Our study of interest in the industries was one of the most satisfactory features in this investigation. Beginning with a scant comprehension of the value of the study of industries in the fourth grade, the interest increases steadily in importance from year to year."

* * * “Interest in commerce seemed to develop more slowly than interest in industry. No evidence of any importance of a desire to know more of this topic was to be found in the fourth or fifth grades."

"Interest in relief, drainage, climate, etc., was everywhere meagre until the eighth grade. Even then it was not predominant. Causal relations do not appeal to young children in the field of physical geography to any greater extent than they do elsewhere. Physical geography is probably better taught to eighth year and high school pupils."

"This investigation seems to confirm the present tendency of pedagogical thinking as related to children's interests in mathematical geography. Although "type questions," suggestive of a rich content, were brought to the attention of hundreds of children, no interest of any importance was in evidence until the child had reached the upper grammar school grade. It is fully understood that there are other factors besides interest which must be taken into consideration. I do feel convinced, however, that interest has not been sufficiently considered by those who have prepared courses, and syllabi and text books. Interest is primarily a feeling and feelings are rarely neutral. If we can make an ally of interest in our geography work, we shall have the right to expect more satisfactory results than we have secured so many times in the past when we have found interest battling against us."

The Journal of Geography believes that Supt. Dann's conclusions are essentially correct.

PROFESSOR DAVIS'S REPORT ON HIS STUDY OF CORAL

REEFS

IN

N Science of March 26, Professor W. M. Davis gives a preliminary report on the SHALER MEMORIAL study of coral reefs. He announces that the full report will probably appear in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. Excerpts from his preliminary report follow:

"Any one of the eight or nine theories of coral reefs will satisfactorily account for the visible features of sea-level reefs themselves, provided the postu

lated conditions and processes of the invisible past are accepted; hence a study of the visible features of the reefs alone can not lead to any valid conclusion."

"The testimony of the first group of witnesses the central islands of barrier reefs convinced me that Darwin's theory of subsidence is the only theory competent to explain not only the development of barrier reefs from fringing reefs, but also the shore-line features of the central (volcanic) islands. within such reefs; for the embayment of the central islands testifies emphatically to subsidence, as Dana long ago pointed out; thus my results in the study of this old problem of the Pacific agree with those of several other recent students. Darwin's theory of subsidence also gives by far the most probable explanation of atolls."

"The testimony of the second group of witnesses-massive elevated reefs such as occur on certain Fiji Islands-convinced me that Darwin's theory of subsidence gives the only satisfactory explanation of the origin of such reefs also; for their limestones rest unconformably on the normally eroded surface of a preexistent foundation."

"All the still-stand theories of barrier reefs-that is, all the theories which involve a fixed relation of the reef foundation to the sea level during the formation of the reef mass-are excluded by evidence of submergence found in the embayed shore lines of the central islands within barrier reefs."

"The glacial-control theory proves incompetent to explain barrier reefs, and it is therefore held to be generally incompetent to explain atolls also."

"No absolute demonstration of the origin of coral reefs, or, for that matter, of any other geological structure, is possible; the most that can be hoped for is a highly probable conclusion. The conclusions announced above in favor of Darwin's theory are believed to have about the same order of probability as that usually accepted as 'proof' in geological discussions."

"The Great Barrier reef of Australia, the largest reef in the world, with a length of some 1,200 miles and a lagoon from 15 to 70 or more miles wide, has grown upward during the recent subsidence by which the Queensland coast has, after a long period of still-stand, been elaborately embayed."

"I

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

would confine geography to what is now called human geography, keeping always in mind the reaction of man on his environment as well as the converse, and I would extend its boundaries only in the direction of social geography, which is a study scarcely touched so far, but one that must of a certainty follow."

"It is sometimes argued that the environmental influences acting on man are too complex and too involved to admit of analysis and estimation, and that in consequence the problems of the geographer are insoluble. There can be no denying the complexity of the material to be studied, but surely this is exactly why its study entails the most rigorous of scientific methods. That is what makes geography a subject for advanced and not elementary students.

But surely the difficulties of the problems that face the geographer do not warrant their abandonment. In fact, by very reason of this complexity, there is no study which to such an extent as geography frees the mind from narrowness."

"There can, of course, be no finality in the conclusions of the geographer. The world is changing of itself and by our actions, and we are changing too. A given set of physical circumstances, even though they could remain unchanged from one generation to another, would affect man differently in those successive periods, because he himself had changed, and his value towards his conditions is not the same in the two generations. We can therefore only arrive at the nature of the relationships between man and his environment at a given time, and their tendencies and directions of change. I doubt how far the quantitative value of geographical controls can be estimated with any degree of precision. But this quantitative estimate is of the greatest importance. When the value of such interpretation is realized, the geographer's valuation and forecast will commend themselves to men of affairs and statesmen."-[R. N. R. Brown in Scot. Geog. Mag. Sept., 1914].

EXAMINATION IN GEOGRAPHY, STATE OF NEW JERSEY State Examination for Pupils of the Highest Elementary Grade, June 4, 1914. PART I.

The pupil or teacher will select nine questions from Part I. Each question counts 10 points.

1. (a) Name two canals in New Jersey. (b) Name two counties through which each passes. (c) Name two important cities or towns near or through which each passes.

2. (a) Name five states that lie north and east of New Jersey.
Name four states that lie between New Jersey and the Mis-

(b) sissippi river.

(c) 3. (a)

What state occupies the northwest corner of our country?
Name five important seaports on the Atlantic coast and the

state in which each is located.

(b)

Name three important cities on the Great Lakes and two on the Gulf of Mexico and the state in which each is located.

4. (a) Select five of the following and state from which of our "possessions" outside of the boundaries of the United States each is obtained in large quantities: seal fur, sugar, tobacco, pineapples, gold, coffee.

(b) Write a short paragraph explaining what the United States is doing to help make its "foreign possessions" prosperous. Refer to the government, education and industries.

5. Name a state in which each of five of the following industries is important: hard coal mining; foreign commerce; silk weaving; sheep raising; cotton weaving; iron manufacturing; granite quarrying; soft wood lumbering.